


day 5: a reminder or two

by halfwheeze



Series: thirty ways to wreck a train [5]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, this is honestly angstier than intended, throw me in the trash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 14:30:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13977078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: This is the process in which he gets by.





	day 5: a reminder or two

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is day five of a 30-day series I'm trying out! I can't say that I'll be fantastic at it, but I'm gonna try!
> 
> Day five is Reminders! Hope you enjoy!

He doesn’t mean to do it. It’s almost a joke at first, a private comedy routine that makes him want to smash a beer bottle against the wall, but a joke nonetheless. He imagines the laborious task of cleaning up the wet glass, of purchasing another pack of beer, and decides that he can just let the joke live. He may be mildly under the influence, but it’s fine. He’s day drunk on a Sunday, in two day dirty sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt that didn’t belong to him in the first place, alone in his apartment, but that’s just the tea, isn’t it? He pushes the sad sickness down his own throat and moves on, making the change and throwing his phone across the room, to maybe be found before he passes out. 

He doesn’t find his phone before he passes out; it’s dead when he struggles to find it to rush to work in the morning, lying beneath the floating island in his kitchen. He snorts and rushes out to the car, still pulling up his jeans where they sag with his lack of a belt. He’s a fucking mess. Plugging in his phone to his car charger takes six separate tries before he can actually start the car and get to the job that he doesn’t love anymore, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a little hard to love anything right now, and he pushes that sickness down too, ignoring the way it gets painful to breathe out through his nose with the tears collecting beneath his eyes. He’ll be fine. He always is. 

He doesn’t remember driving to work, to be perfectly honest. He doesn’t remember the turn off of his road or the short route to his office or even getting out of the car, really, it’s almost like he sat down in his car and got up from his office chair. The desk next to him is empty, still stocked with - someone’s - belongings. There are some photographs with washclothes over them to block the sight of the images beneath, but he’s long forgotten what they used to be. Well, he’s long tried to forget it. He’s surely forgotten something, but there will always be things that fade away. Everything fades eventually. He plugs his phone in just beside his computer screen and settles in, not saying a word to anyone. 

A hand comes down on his shoulder and he struggles not to flip shit, instead calmly turning around in a way that truly does not reflect how he feels. Steven Lim is standing in front of him now, bright smile dimmed by discomfort and a little bit of worry that just makes him raise a calm, cool eyebrow. Steven waves like he couldn’t just as well talk, and he sighs, putting down the phone still in his hand on the table. He doesn’t notice when the lock screen lights up, but it appears that Steven certainly does. He swallows as the standing man gasps, eyes shooting between him and his phone. 

“Shane…” Steven says, pulling out the one syllable name with sympathy, and maybe that’s his name. He doesn’t really think about it anymore, because it just sounds like - someone’s - voice, bright with laughter or soft with affection or whispered low in his ear and. Maybe that’s his name. Maybe. He doesn’t look up at Steven again, turning back to his computer and shoving headphones on his head. He hears Steven leave, but the other doesn’t say anymore, apparently already having expended all effort he’ll put forward to him. He can’t blame Steven. He can’t say he would try to help himself either. He’s a little bit of a shitcan, all put together. 

The workday passes like the morning car ride: full of things that he remembers in little steals that don’t matter much to him or anyone else. He knows he works, editing videos he didn’t create because he doesn’t have the vibrance in him anymore. There are a great many things that he can’t be anymore, and not all of those things have to do with his workplace, but. He did lose a lot of that too. The things he lost the most of have more to do with who he is, but he doesn’t like to think about that. He doesn’t want to think about anything that reminds him of - someone. 

Eventually, he goes home to an empty apartment. He knows why it’s empty. He knows that he’s Shane and that Ryan was Ryan and that Ryan isn’t coming home. He knows that Ryan will never come home again, that he can’t and he won’t and there’s not a damn thing that Shane can do to change that. He sits down on the couch and he doesn’t cry, doesn’t turn on the television, doesn’t get on his phone. He lets the cat that - someone - wanted crawl into his lap and stay, and he stares off into space. He does this at least once a day, and that’s the process in which he forgets. This is the process in which he gets by. 

Someone’s picture is on the mantle. Someone’s jacket hangs beside the door, on the jacket hooks he never uses because someone bought them, and thinking about it makes the emptiness feel darker. Someone has a laptop that he has never touched on top of the television stand. Someone left energy drinks in the fridge over a year ago that he hasn’t touched, not because he doesn’t like energy drinks, but because they taste like kisses he doesn’t remember anymore. Someone used to leave patient kisses on his forehead and nose, used to have warm hands in is hair and on his hip bones. He wonders if someone misses him. He tries not to remember that someone can’t. 

He goes back to bed eventually. He does not drink tonight. He does smell the sheets, where they smell like one person has been sleeping there, but the person is not him. He has been using someone’s washing products since they left, but it barely helps missing them. He hopes they come back tomorrow. 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a prompt @halfwheeze on tumblr, and I'll get to it when I can!


End file.
